[ARCHIVED] Giving a student a second chance on their original quiz attempt

[everson_50]

Hi Everyone,

I hope I can easily explain this situation.

I have set up my midterm exam in Canvas in a special way.  Essentially, there are multiple versions of each question on the midterm.  All questions are multiple-choice.  I set things up so that each question is tied to particular question bank, and a random question is drawn from that bank for each student.  We hope this will reduce attempts at academic misconduct by better ensuring that each student gets a unique set of questions.

Sadly, yesterday, on our campus, Canvas crashed as several of my students were in the middle of taking the midterm exam.  We have our exams open for a particular window of time, and sometime in that window, students have to take the exam.  Unless students have been approved for extra time through our Disability Services office, most students have to complete the 25 question test in 90 minutes.  Fortunately, not all students were impacted by this issue and Canvas started working again within an hour.

Some students were almost finished with the exam when Canvas crashed.  All they needed to do was check their answers.  However, once Canvas crashed, the exam clock kept ticking and some exams were just automatically submitted when time ran out without students being able to check their work.  I know I can give students another attempt at an assessment, but in this case, that would mean seeing a whole new set of randomly chosen problems.  I don't want that.  I was simply hoping there might be a way for me to allow them back into the work they already completed (i.e., seeing their original attempt again and being able to make modifications to that attempt if needed).  Is that possible once a quiz had been submitted?  

Thank you for your help!

[rolfis · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Was it a Classic Quiz? As far as I know, this functionality is only available in New Quiz, under Moderate and Reopen attempt for a specific student. In Classic, it seems to add an extra attempt and as you say this will be blank with a new set of questions.

All the best,
Rolf Johansson
Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

[everson_50]

Yes, it is a Classic Quiz.  Unfortunately, that is all we seem to have the ability to set up at our institution.  We don't have access to the New Quiz tool.  

[Ron_Bowman]

@everson_50 

I feel your pain on this one.  Same thing happened to me on Wednesday. I am using classic quizzes as well.  Unfortunately, the way I did my test, a reattempt on the same exam is not feasible (it is a circuit analysis class, so if they have the circuit, they can do the work ahead of time and have the correct answers)  

My plan is to grade what I got and then make another test and let anybody take it.  I'll grade it and take the higher of the two scores.  A lot more work than I want, probably not the best solution, but I can't think of any other way to be fair about it.

Ron

[everson_50]

Thank you for commiserating, @Ron_Bowman.  I teach a statistical literacy course, and since I had several versions of each question, I was comfortable giving a second attempt to those who needed it.  I think more troubling to me was how upsetting this was for some of my students.  I know this isn't an easy time for any of them, and I felt somewhat powerless to help in the way I wanted to help.  

[Ron_Bowman]

@everson_50 Yes It was definitely more stressful for the students than for me.  Once it started happening, I figured I was in for more work with another exam.  Therefore I was just frustrated with the thought of more work.

[everson_50]

I hear you, @Ron_Bowman!  ☹️

[truehle]

How did you set up an assignment with multiple versions?  I teach Math 3 and this would be absolutely amazing--especially considering what I have to do now.  

[Ron_Bowman]

@truehle 

I do not follow what you are asking about with multiple versions on an assignment.  Can you elaborate on what you are asking?

is it what everson_50 did?  Or something we mentioned in our responses.

Ron

[truehle]

everson_50 said that she created a test that had multiple versions. I was asking how to set up multiple versions of tests. In other words, instead of creating 5 different tests, students would get a different question on the same test if they wanted to improve their score.

[Ron_Bowman]

@truehle 

I think she was referring to using question groups within an exam.  where you could have 5 different questions in a group and have the quiz pull one question of the 5 out.  If you give a retest with the same question bank it is possible a student would receive the same question.

I think that is what she was referring to.

[everson_50]

I am so very sorry that I never came back to this.  I didn't realize until today that I had received other replies.  

I do indeed use question groups with the exam.  I generally have between two to six versions of each question that I ask on my exams.  I set things up so that one question is randomly chosen from each question group.  So, with a 20-item exam, I essentially set up 20 question groups.  

[LukeOsborn]

I had a similar situation. It was necessary to pass the exam of 20 questions in the test form according to the free essay sample https://eduzaurus.com/free-essay-samples/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs/  and during the passing there was another failure. At about the 15th question all students changed the time of the exam and instead of displaying the time to close - all students closed the exam and automatically saved the answers to the current stage. I hope such cases are isolated and will not be repeated.